The Olympus OM-D EM5 has joined the collection

17/06/2012 - 14:30

I have been watching the reports on this new CSC camera with interest as a possible lightweight replacement for my canon 60D + 24-105LIS + 70-300LIS).

As I get older so I find that carting even this lot around in a shoulder bag leads to sore shoulders after a while so I was thinking on the lines of keeping the 5dmk2 + these lenses for my sales images and part-exing the 60D + a couple of less used lenses for the EM5.

I have had the EM5 for about 5 days and so far have been very impressed with it.

In this first article I will just highlight some of the positive and negative aspects I have found so far.

+s:

its a cute little thing in black, very well made and suprisingly heavy for its size (although still so light compared to the canon kit that I have to keep checking my bag to make sure that the camera is in it!)

both the kit lens and 75-300 perform much better than I expected and I'm still learning how to get the best out of them

focus speed is as fast as the reports say and now that I have learnt a couple of tricks to reduce the size of the focus area its very accurate too

the "Slow Aperture" that so many people seem to be moaning about is a non-event for me

shutter noise is minimal compared to the 60D and positively quiet compared to the 5Dmk2

talking about noise, much has been made of the noise of the IBIS system, yes its there but its no worse than with my canon lens IS system

-ves:

where are the batteries, they are rarer than hens' teeth at present and there are no good alternatives from the likes of Hahnel either. This seems to be a world-wide phenomenon, what a screw-up, particulalrly since the battery only lasts for around 300 shots

for me, the battery grip was essential to improve the fit of the camera to my hands and give the system a bit of inertial mass to help stabilise it when shooting with either lens

the manual is opaque, I'm learning most of what I know from other users on the web rather than by reading the manual!

I seem to be getting the run-around from the Olympus team handling the "Free Case Offer" which is a bit disappointing (particularly as I just missed the free grip offer)